CRIMINAL LAW

Assignment - Criminal Law

Assignment - Criminal Law

Research Methodology

The most common definition of criminal law is that it has three elements: crime, prosecution and defense. On the whole, it deals with the rules and regulations set by state legislators and Congress and compliance to those rules. It also deals with penalties and charges for people breaking the rules or causing harm to the general public. The main purpose of enforcing criminal law is to make sure that safety and order is maintained in the country. The decisions made by appellate courts define general procedure in the case where clear legislated rules are absent (Smith & Hogan, 1983, Pp. 144-178).

As defined by HG legal directories, (2010) “Criminal law envelops the criminal procedure employed when charging, trying, sentencing and imprisoning defendants convicted of crimes, as well as regulation concerning how suspects are investigated, charged and tried”. State has the primary responsibility to enforce the law. Criminal law also covers the areas of criminal justice, criminal procedure and substantial criminal law.

Social prevention, as its name implies, is not an individual preventive action is a measure or set of measures taken collectively to prevent or inhibit the formation of problems affecting the healthy development of a community. Prevent the emergence of social forms of crime, means that the state take joint action with civil society, i.e., is the direct responsibility of the State prevent the rise of crime, but the measures should not be taken without citizen participation. In addition there is democratic or dictatorial state that can be sustained without economic contribution of citizens (Samaha, 1999, Pp. 56-71). The state has more than one way to fight crime; however, the only one that includes citizen participation is social prevention. The participation of citizens in preventive policies is necessary to monitor and demand accountability from the authorities at all levels of government.

Burden of proof means that procession has to prove its point that the suspect is guilty of committing the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecutor starts presenting his case first and gives a brief explanation of all the proofs that he has collected. On the other side, defense resumes the case after the prosecution rests and presents the witnesses and evidences. All the witnesses should be cross-examined but, defended may not testify according to the 5th amendment in the constitution of the The United Kingdom. After the closing arguments, the jury adjourns to review the evidences in private. The jury members have to agree on a unanimous verdict of guilty or not guilty. However, if the jury members exceeds to more than 6 persons then unanimous voting is not compulsory. The final verdict is given on the basis of majoring votes (Robinson, Garve & Ferzan, 2009, Pp. 174-200).

Despite of a systematic criminal proceeding the crime rate in The United Kingdom has grown. Furthermore, the frequency of certain types of crimes like cyber crimes, mugging, sexual abuse etc has increased rapidly. The only solution to reduce crime rate is to identify the causes ...